The Chronicles of Being Unpopular in College

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Yes Man

Let’s start off with the good stuff, because it’s always more fun to end a blog post on a bad note right? Right.

So today I noticed some improvement in my interpersonal relations here in Anonymous City, Anonymous. Last year, I had a classmate that I thought was a pretty good friend in the beginning but slowly moved towards the ‘cool kids’ and little by little spoke to me less. We shall call her ‘Fade Away’. Anyway, I was really hurt when Fade Away faded away, because I actually really enjoyed talking with her and I could never figure out why she decided to quietly shun me all of a sudden.

I say quietly because that is how it was, she just stopped responding as much when I talked to her, leaving shortly after I arrived somewhere and showing little interest in joining me anywhere. Though today she actually engaged in pleasant conversation with me on more than one occasion. She joked with me in class, had a full talk while out for a cigarette and rarely did I feel like she wished she was elsewhere. This boosted my spirits.

Of course the good people in my life here were still good, they shall be named shortly enough, but apart from being awesome, there isn’t really a story there, so moving on.

On my way back to my dorm I was looking forward to a nice quiet night in, I wasn’t really bothered by it as I had a fairly long but mostly pleasant day at school, so I harbored no expectations for the evening. However when passing a group of people on the way to the dorm, I discovered that I knew one of them vaguely through a friend from last year so I lit up a cigarette and decided to say hello. It turned out this group of people were going off campus, but not far off campus, for dinner and she invited me. Usually for fear of being awkward I would say no. In fact I almost did, and when I agreed and realized that it would be 3 people I didn’t know and her, whom I barely know, I considered changing my answer. In fact the biggest reason I didn’t change my answer was because I thought it would be embarrassing because I couldn’t come up with a good excuse fast enough.

In any event we left to head the short 7-10 minute walk to the restaurant. Now I have to make a confession:

I’m fat. I don’t mean chubby, I mean fat. You all get why no one likes me now huh? No, that’s not it, at least I hope not… Anyway, the point of this confession is that I walk slower than most thin people, and I get winded easier. This girl who invited me, let’s call her ‘Sweetie’ for now, because she really is sweet, walked with me at my pace the whole time. Sweetie drew no attention to my mildly labored breaths, and made me feel welcome the whole time. This isn’t to say that there were no awkward ‘what am I doing here?’ moments, but in general it was a pleasant, outside the norm evening. I even got to have a shop-talk discussion with a guy in a similar program to mine.

I’m not sure if I made life-long friends, but I had a nice evening and that’s not nothing.

Now the bad news. I’m sure I will being getting more into this as the year wears on, but I fear my unpopularity is going to kick me in the ass when it comes to my internship. Yes we all apply for internships, I will tell you that much.

Anyway, last year, I did my damnedest, I really did and most, certainly not all, but most of my grades reflected that. However when someone wants to hire you to work at their company, this matters less than how you are with people and how likely you were to show up for class, and how you meet deadlines, etc. I can’t stress enough that when group work was involved, I showed up. However, the teachers don’t care if you showed up when others counted on you, they care that you did all the time.

That was difficult to accomplish with how depressed I got last year due to incredible loneliness. In fact I took a week off last year, citing some illness or another, but really I was too depressed to leave my house. I took a mental health week. Not day, not long weekend, but week. Of course they did believe I was sick, but I don’t want them saying anything about me not being trustworthy. That would be horrendous. However I have a plan:

Improve immediately. Show up, always, assert myself rather than trying to please the ‘cool kids’, and work work work. Hopefully they will see this and forget my indiscretions from last year.

I guess that ended on a sort of positive note. Sorry if that was wildly uninteresting for those that are following me (and to you few, thank you so much, I never figured this would actually reach anyone, and so soon!), here’s hoping my life is shittier tomorrow!